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iPad/smart cover color thread

I just ordered some of the leather oil. Do any of you guys know if it bleeds a lot? I was thinking about making a decal, and putting that on the smart cover before I put the oil on to see if I can make a design. and then take it off after the oil drys, just not sure if it'll bleed underneath the decal.
 
I applied the oil this afternoon and am letting the thing dry thoroughly before I use it on my iPad. Looks terrific! It was easy enough to apply, using the applicator included in the container, and then after a few moments I used a soft cloth as well. It doesn't seem to have bled through to the other side of the Smart Cover, which is something about which I had been a little concerned. I don't know, though, about whether or not it would bleed under the edges of a decal.....it could well do that.
 
section215 said:
The Obenauf's Leather Oil comes with an applicator inside the lid... it's sort of a soft ball shape that you dip into the oil, shake off some of the excess, and then apply to the item.

The leather really darkened a lot (much more, say, than a heavy tan leather belt I recently did this on) and as another poster said, the trick really is to get an even distribution. Once it's semi dry you can start to buff it and use more force to spread the oil out from any area where it may be a bit heavier than normal.

I did not treat the inside (the part that covers the screen).

The last thing I'd say is that it does take a while to dry, so it's something to be patient with before putting it on the ipad.
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Section215,

Sorry to bombard you with another question about treating the leather but ou seem to be the trendsetter/de facto leather staining genius around these parts..

Any ideas on how the leather stain might effect the red leather..? Since the red leather is already dyed (although is suspect the tan is as well) would that have any effect..? Is the leather dye colored (brown?) or does it just darken/make more rich whatever color you are applying it to? I would love to see if the red would go from the more of a firetruck red that it appears (yes current red smart cover owners..?) to a darker, richer brick or dark cherry red..? Any suspicions..? I suspect your guess is better than mine and i would hate to spend $80 on a leather smart cover as a science experiment only to ruin it...?

Anyone else have thoughts or experience that might help...?
 
cinca said:
Section215,

Sorry to bombard you with another question about treating the leather but ou seem to be the trendsetter/de facto leather staining genius around these parts..

Any ideas on how the leather stain might effect the red leather..? Since the red leather is already dyed (although is suspect the tan is as well) would that have any effect..? Is the leather dye colored (brown?) or does it just darken/make more rich whatever color you are applying it to? I would love to see if the red would go from the more of a firetruck red that it appears (yes current red smart cover owners..?) to a darker, richer brick or dark cherry red..? Any suspicions..? I suspect your guess is better than mine and i would hate to spend $80 on a leather smart cover as a science experiment only to ruin it...?

Anyone else have thoughts or experience that might help...?
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Hi there. My feeling is that would darken the red, but difficult to be 100% sure how it would turn out unfortunately. All my experience using leather oil has been on tan or black leather. Agree that it's a heck of a lot of money to spend in case it goes wrong, though to be honest I am not sure what the worst thing that could happen would be - the oil is a coating intended for use on any leather to protect it from stains etc., and one of the side effects is darkening leather as a general matter.

Sorry I can't be more helpful here. If there was some way of having a swatch of red leather from a furniture store of something to experiment on, that might be worth a try.
 
section215 said:
Hi there. My feeling is that would darken the red, but difficult to be 100% sure how it would turn out unfortunately. All my experience using leather oil has been on tan or black leather. Agree that it's a heck of a lot of money to spend in case it goes wrong, though to be honest I am not sure what the worst thing that could happen would be - the oil is a coating intended for use on any leather to protect it from stains etc., and one of the side effects is darkening leather as a general matter.

Sorry I can't be more helpful here. If there was some way of having a swatch of red leather from a furniture store of something to experiment on, that might be worth a try.
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Ahh.. Great suggestions... I think I will dig up a few dyed leather samples and do some experimentation. I did read comments about that oil from someone who said they used it on a jacket that was black leather with some red, white and blue leather... They didn't comment on a darkening but they did say it worked great on all the leather including the colored leather... So i concur, sounds like the worst case scenario is the leather just gets conditioned and protected...
 
iAAPL said:
You can roll it either way.
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Please note: you can fold it either way but if you fold it so color is on outside (and protecting the microfiber from collecting dirt and debris) and stand it up right horizontally as if to watch a movie it can become top heavy and plunk down backwards and slamming the ipad onto whatever surface its on


if you make triangle with microfiber out (also allowing it to collect dirt)- it is much more secure and cant just release if you press too hard


guess we're just suppose to make sure our surface is very clean before laying it down -- throw in an extra pack of wet wipes to clean surfaces !!! (i.e. plane tray tables, public tables, kitchen table after eating etc)
 
I also bought some Obenauf Oil ($13 for an 8 ounce bottle from RCC). I haven't gotten my smart cover yet to apply it. Regarding the red leather, you should take a look at this
http://www.flickr.com/photos/seditiouscanary/2434278019/

It's the Obenauf LP instead of the oil, but the type of color change should be similar. Look a few pictures back to see what the saddle looked like before the applications.
 
Sorry I have posted in a couple days, some troll got me banned.

Anyway, here's a pic of my tan cover after some obenaufs. I ordered from Mickey's boots or something like that on amazon. Came like 10 days before they said it would and they sent a free sample of the heavy duty LP too.

The color looks MUCH more even in real life (this pic was taken on my iphone 3g in crappy light) behind it is my leather map case/bag that i'll be putting my ipad in (which is why I wanted a darker tan for the smart cover) I also have the corner folded over so you can see the contrast of the microfiber side (which was a pretty close color to the original leather. It may be my imagination but it also feels a little heftier now. It will be interesting to see how the color changes over the week it takes to set it's final color and then over the months that it's used.

img0102cb.jpg


*note about color: it looks more like a nice older natural leather, doesn't look splotchy and doesn't look like a flat color.
 
cinca said:
Ahh.. Great suggestions... I think I will dig up a few dyed leather samples and do some experimentation. I did read comments about that oil from someone who said they used it on a jacket that was black leather with some red, white and blue leather... They didn't comment on a darkening but they did say it worked great on all the leather including the colored leather... So i concur, sounds like the worst case scenario is the leather just gets conditioned and protected...
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cinca, if you darken the red, can you let us know how it turns out? I love the red color now, but a dark red would be fabulous.
 
escape1974 said:
cinca, if you darken the red, can you let us know how it turns out? I love the red color now, but a dark red would be fabulous.
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I will.. I hate to be the guinea pig though!! :). Although seeing some of these pictures really has me wondering (optimistically) what the red would like like with a few coats of that oil on it.. A nice, smokey brick red maybe..?

.... and the pictures also having me REALLY liking the earthy, natural tan. :)

Decisions, decisions...
 
RadicalxEdward said:
Sorry I have posted in a couple days, some troll got me banned.

Anyway, here's a pic of my tan cover after some obenaufs. I ordered from Mickey's boots or something like that on amazon. Came like 10 days before they said it would and they sent a free sample of the heavy duty LP too.

The color looks MUCH more even in real life (this pic was taken on my iphone 3g in crappy light) behind it is my leather map case/bag that i'll be putting my ipad in (which is why I wanted a darker tan for the smart cover) I also have the corner folded over so you can see the contrast of the microfiber side (which was a pretty close color to the original leather. It may be my imagination but it also feels a little heftier now. It will be interesting to see how the color changes over the week it takes to set it's final color and then over the months that it's used.

*note about color: it looks more like a nice older natural leather, doesn't look splotchy and doesn't look like a flat color.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your experience and (despite your criticisms) a great picture. Super helpful in seeing what it looks like. I'm not sure if it is the photo or the treatment that you did versus the picture earlier in this thread but your cover has a more uneven (and in my opinion natural) look that i really prefer. I really don't like the even coloring of the stock cases -- to me leather seems richer and more natural when it looks/has a little more age and patina....
 
FWIW I am also interested in using oil on the red to get a deeper color. Planning to pursue that early next week, but if somebody gets pics prior to then, that'd be great!
 
cinca said:
Thanks for sharing your experience and (despite your criticisms) a great picture. Super helpful in seeing what it looks like. I'm not sure if it is the photo or the treatment that you did versus the picture earlier in this thread but your cover has a more uneven (and in my opinion natural) look that i really prefer. I really don't like the even coloring of the stock cases -- to me leather seems richer and more natural when it looks/has a little more age and patina....
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Ya I didn't like the flat color of the stock cases either. I'm going to take a better picture with a real cam when I get home today. lol

As far as the evenness of the color, it DOES matter how much/heavy you put the oil on. more oil = darker. I did it kinda sloppy but when the oil eventually dries out (probably won't be for a long while) we'll see what the color looks like and maybe i'll do it again more neatly.

What I'd advise if you want that kinda of look is dip the applicator in the bottle, then smush it against the rim to get the extra oil off.

Go around the outside of the cover first (if it's flat on a table or something don't worry about getting oil on the microfiber side) the corners should probably be the darkest. Then I'd go in a spiral from outside to inside and use up the oil, then only add a little to the applicator at a time and work your way in with a light amount until you get the color you're going for. Only takes about a minute or so.

I haven't checked mine since I did it so idk if it's color has changed as it's sat out. but i'll let you guys know when I get home today.
 
I have a Black iPad with a Gray Smart Cover (Poly). To me, this color matches the aluminum the best and is very stealthy (it just doesn't grab your attention at all, blends in). It is essentially the same color as the microfiber. It ends up looking like one cohesive device.

The lighting/camera wasn't the greatest, apologies in advance. I think the last two shots are the most indicative of the real color:

cover.png


Also, in case you weren't already aware, you can check out what different colors will look like on Apple's website. About halfway down the page you can change the color of the iPad and cover: http://www.apple.com/ipad/smart-cover/
 
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Does anyone have a black iPad 2 and orange smart cover? I'm thinking about buying that combi tomorrow when it's released here in Denmark :) But just wanted to see how it looked in advance. :D
 
jafingi said:
Does anyone have a black iPad 2 and orange smart cover? I'm thinking about buying that combi tomorrow when it's released here in Denmark :) But just wanted to see how it looked in advance. :D
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Why aren't you in line already!?
 
Two things for you guys.

1. A bunch of people have said they'd rather have the leather side out when folding the cover into a triangle to not get dirt between the cover and the ipad, but that it's not as stable as fiber side out. I think that was very intentional by apple (to choose which side to have out) this leather is so soft that it will get scuffed up REAL quick compared to the glass of the ipad. The fiber side is much much easier to just brush dirt off of before closing.

2. Here's a better pic of the oiled cover. I kinda wish I had done mine a tad lighter, but it does match the bag well. I couldn't get the color in the pictures to EXACTLY match the cover in real life but I got as close as I could (plus by the time I was putting the pics together, it was darker which meant the cover looked darker than it did in the light I took the pictures in. so it was hard to compare)

smartcover.jpg


In the top right image. The left side was illuminated primarily by indoor incandescent lighting and the right side was lit primarily by window light.
 
RadicalxEdward said:
Two things for you guys.

1. A bunch of people have said they'd rather have the leather side out when folding the cover into a triangle to not get dirt between the cover and the ipad, but that it's not as stable as fiber side out. I think that was very intentional by apple (to choose which side to have out) this leather is so soft that it will get scuffed up REAL quick compared to the glass of the ipad. The fiber side is much much easier to just brush dirt off of before closing.

2. Here's a better pic of the oiled cover. I kinda wish I had done mine a tad lighter, but it does match the bag well. I couldn't get the color in the pictures to EXACTLY match the cover in real life but I got as close as I could (plus by the time I was putting the pics together, it was darker which meant the cover looked darker than it did in the light I took the pictures in. so it was hard to compare)

smartcover.jpg


In the top right image. The left side was illuminated primarily by indoor incandescent lighting and the right side was lit primarily by window light.
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That is simply beautiful, exactly what I want. Thanks so much for sharing!
 
SC is nice but for now it is a no buy, simply because it does not cover the back and I would be annoyed to scratch the back when I transport it...
 
Best color for White iPad

Hmm - im more of a minimalist kinda guy and im stumped what cover I should go for. Thinking of something subtle hence the creme leather

Good or bad idea? Im overseas so have not seen these things in person but my iPad is on the way
 
horrible photos, bare with me. but anyone else having this issue with their smart cover? first photos ever posting up on macrumors.





 
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